‘Today there is hardly a democratic government in Turkey. I have taken to calling it “Erdocracy” as it carries the heavy hand of PM Erdoğan.’ Writer Tarik Günersel issues a sharp critique of Prime Minister Erdoğan’s government, as censorship of the arts expands and institutional corruption worsens.

The authorities classify him as a pornographer but Ren Hang is simply a photographer pushing for freedom in his field. His go-to themes of nudity and homosexuality are on the verge of giving his conservative society a nervous breakdown.

When Iranian television censored the broadcast of the Brazil 2014 World Cup draw in last month due to host Fernanda Lima’s dress, soccer-crazed Iranian youth took to social media to express their anger – not towards the government censors but against the actress.

Satellite dishes, bootleg VHS tapes, uncensored films, police searches, laughter, and fear. Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran has imposed and removed bans on just about everything – soon such actions, says the new minister of Islamic Culture and Guidance says, will make everyone laugh.

In this exclusive interview, Tienchi Martin-Liao sits down with her long-time friend and colleague, the celebrated exiled writer Liao Yiwu. They talked about literature, emigration, and politics. If they had tried to have this conversation in China, it could have been considered illegal.

Repression of the press is a puzzle, and the pieces can take many forms: outright censorship by the state is one form, but the latest arrest of four Al Jazeera journalists in Egypt might be considered another. Cartoon by Ángel Ramiro Zapata Mora (Colombia).

There are far too many countries where news and content providers constantly face a very special and formidable form of censorship, one exercised in the name of religion or even God. In a recent report, Reporters Without Borders analyzed the key hotspots and offered its recommendations.

“These past few years I’ve been driven into exile, hunted down and attacked from all sides.” The veteran Chinese journalist and former Southern Weekly commentator Xiao Shu, an important figure in the New Citizens Movement, speaks out on being silenced from China’s internet.

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About Sampsonia Way

Sampsonia Way is an online magazine sponsored by City of Asylum/Pittsburgh that seeks to protect and advocate for writers who may be endangered, to educate the public about threats to writers and literary expression, and to create a community in which endangered writers thrive and literary culture is a valued part of life.